Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbuli and Minister of Health and Population Hala Zayed, together with Chinese Ambassador to Egypt Liao Liqiang and other officials, Monday inspected the Egyptian vaccine manufacturer designated to produce doses of China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine locally in Egypt.
Speaking at a press conference held after the inspection, the Egyptian Prime Minister said the world is currently experiencing a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, and several vaccine producers have failed to honour contracts to supply vaccines to Egypt.
Therefore, the localized production of COVID-19 vaccine doses in Egypt is critical for the country to contain outbreaks.
“President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has instructed that Egypt must have localized production capacity for COVID-19 vaccines. In this regard, I would like to thank the Chinese government for its help to Egypt. Thanks to the efforts of the Egyptian Ministry of Health and other relevant departments, we have cooperated with a Chinese vaccine manufacturer and started localized vaccine production in Egypt,” said Madbuli.
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He noted that Egypt has completed the first batch of production of about one million doses of the Sinovac vaccine since the entry into operation of the production line in mid-June.
Egypt is now actively negotiating with the Chinese side to obtain more raw materials to expand the country’s vaccine productivity, he added.
“The challenge we are currently facing is to negotiate with our Chinese partner to double the supply of raw materials needed for the production of vaccine doses. According to the previous contract signed between the two sides, we will produce 40 million vaccine doses by the end of this year. Now we want to double the production to 80 million doses so that the immunization needs of 40 million people can be met,” he said.
Egypt received the first batch of raw materials for manufacturing Sinovac vaccine doses on May 21. So far, Sinovac has provided 1,400 liters of raw materials, which can be used to produce 2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Sinovac has also dispatched technical personnel to Egypt to supervise and guide the filling and packaging of vaccine doses.
